Just Another Face
by King Caspian the Seafarer
Summary: In the Enlistment Line in Cambridge, a young man notices a young Edmund Pevensie, and contemplates. After calling him squirt. Written and posted in honor of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader trailer...sadly, movieverse. ;D


**Disclaimer: I do not own the Chronicles of Narnia...nor the Voyage of the Dawn Treader trailer.**

**A/N: ...kay, so I was up last night at twelve waiting for Narniaweb to post the trailer for the Voyage of the Dawn Treader and found (GREAT SCOTT!) that it was already on youtube. Being unsure as to whether it was the same trailer as the one Narniaweb was going to post, I settled back in my chair to wait another two hours...and a fic arose from the ashes of my anticipation and excitement, like the fire bird, the phoenix...**

**Okay. So maybe I need a little more sleep. However before I go back to bed I shall post this fic (not very good and a little depressing because it was written at 1AM in the morning) in honor of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader Trailer and hope that it incites you to go see it. Like, fast.**

**Enjoy.**

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**Just Another Face**

Blasted queues. If there's anything that I hate worse than war, it's waiting. Especially waiting in lines. I shift my weight and sigh impatiently.

Oh look. There goes whats-his-face. Flanders, wasn't it?

"Ey, Flanders!" I shout. He turns and gives me a look.

"Don't you remember me?" I ask, grinning and wondering why on earth he's got that frigid gleam in his eyes. "It's me! Smith! 'elped you with that prank on Campbell last month—the one with the mothballs and the chronometer?"

Flanders keeps on staring, and I cock my head and try another grin.

"Smith, man! Don't you remember me?"

The young man shrugs his slender shoulders and says three…well, really two words before walking off.

"M'not Flanders."

I stare at him with a somewhat dismayed feeling as he retreats. Surely it was him…oh, blast. It was Flanders' roommate who had the brown hair. Typical of me to get the names and faces mixed up. The boy in front of me snickers. I whirl to look at him, but he's facing forward innocently. I grab his arm and look him in the face.

"What you laughin' about?" I ask, taking in the cap pulled low on his brow and the oversized jacket that he tries to melt back into. "Hear somethin' funny, did you?"

I look up into stubborn brown eyes and see a glint of something like resentment glowing in them. But he jerks his chin up so that he can stare me full in the face (blimey, he's almost my height, though he's got to be my junior) and the corners of his mouth twitch.

"No…I just, well…" there is a sparkle of humor in his eyes as he finishes, "the mothballs didn't happen to be crushed and inside the chronometer, did they?"

I almost grin back, but something in those brown eyes brings back a flash from the past, and every inch of me grows cold. Blimey. It's like seeing Jim again.

"What's it to you if they were?" I ask, and watch as his eyes grow confused at my suddenly hostile tone—gor, like Jim, he is! So like Jim. And I hate him for it.

"And what are you doin' in this line, anyway?" I continue, looking him over again, tugging at the lapels of his coat. "Aiming on followin' your big brother to the war?"

"What makes you say that?" he asks, jerking away from me, glaring.

"Aw, come off it, squirt," I tease, cuffing his shoulder roughly and giving him what ends up being a sneer like the ones I used to give Jim. Gor…did I call him squirt? Cold down my spine…that's what I used to call…"I mean, look at you. Cap pulled low, oversized overcoat…anyone can see that you're—" I leaned forward and whispered loudly, "under-aged."

He pulls back and gave me an angry look, but this time there is fear in his eyes. It strikes me as very odd that, for the first time since I first looked in his eyes, he doesn't remind me of Jim. There's something old in those eyes…something that's very much like a grownup. But right now he reminds me of a grownup trying to be a child again who's trying to be a grownup. Confusing, right? But that's the way I like to think. It keeps things simple.

The man ahead of us has the sound of being finished in his voice, so I lean forward again and say, "Take my advice, kid. Tip up your hat and take the coat off. You'll do better—and might even get in. Find your older brother, and all."

He glares. I don't feel quite so hospitable now, as he turns to engage the man at the desk in a conversation that will change his life.

"Fine then," I mutter. "Suit yourself, squirt."

They talk in quiet tones for a moment, until the man says, loudly, "Are you sure you're eighteen?"

The boy straightens, and when he replies there is an emotionless void in his voice that echoes with fear.

"Why? Do I look older?"

Brazen answer, lad, brazen answer. Not bad for a…what, how old? Sixteen-year-old? Younger? Like Jim was during the raids. The grin dissipates from my face and I struggle to keep from twisting out of the line.

"Edmund." A new voice from behind—a girl's voice. The young man—Edmund, apparently—turns. "You're supposed to be helping with the groceries."

The girl stands there, holding the paper bag at her waist and watching him like an older sister—although she's obviously younger. The youth hesitates at the desk, but then as he turns to go, I start to laugh. It's a bitter laugh, but I'm relieved at the same time. Relieved that he won't be going to die with us. Relieved that maybe he'll live to be older than Jim was when the bomb hit.

"Better luck next time, eh squirt?" I snort, and grab at his cap. Poor kid. We could've been comrades-in-arms, fighting in the trenches together, if only you'd listened to me, you might've had a chance to be brave, like your brother, or whoever you're set on following to war.

He looks annoyed as he stalks away, straightening his cap and too-big coat. My grin fades as he's gone, because now his name is gone from my mind—Edward? Edwin?—and he's just another face. Another young face with old eyes, eyes that remind me of another boy his age. Wonder if he'll make it to the war. Wonder if he'll die fighting for what he believes in.

I hope not. I hope he lives for a long time, long enough to stand through lots of queues and forget the names of people he's just met, though he remembers their faces.

He's disappearing around the corner with his sister now, looking indignant. I'll never see him again.

So long…squirt.

_finis_


End file.
